Methane emitted by ruminants like cattle, sheep and goats is recycled into carbon in plants and soil, in a process known as the biogenic carbon cycle. It’s an important natural cycle that’s been happening since the beginning of life. — Agree to Disagree

It goes up into the atmosphere first. Methane is lighter than air. But yes, increased CO2 is good for plants.

"Looking at remote sensing data from NASA's satellites, we've discovered that over the last two decades, the Earth has increased its green leaf area by a total of 5 percent, which is roughly five and a half million square kilometers—an increase equivalent to the size of the entire Amazon rain forest.". NASA

beef cattle turn low-quality feed into lots of high-quality protein for human nutrition. — Agree to Disagree

They do, but American beef promotes obesity, heart disease, and strokes. Non-American beef is much better for you.

I inject moral as a qualifier for obligation, because the topic is concerned with moral facts. — Mww

Just to add to that: morality is often pictured as a covenant. You follow the Mosaic law, and God will protect you and your family. Fail to follow the law, and God will feed you to the Assyrians. So morality is something you commit to because you have special insight about God's will. The obligation follows from that commitment, or acceptance of the covenant.

Scenarios vary, but that's usually the basic framework. If you draw the concept of moral realism away from that cultural backdrop, I think it's good to specify what you mean, just to avoid the devil in the details?

What do you think of Meno's paradox?:

"If you know what you're looking for, inquiry is unnecessary. If you don't know what you're looking for, inquiry is impossible. Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible."

If we reduce the number of cows, all sorts of things would be better, but I agree that fossil fuels are what we need to focus on.

There's no need to tell me to stop doing something that I haven't done. — Quixodian

What you haven't done is stand up for me when Benkei told me to "shut the fuck up" and when Mikie directed abusive language at Agree-to-Disagree. But this isn't the place for a discussion of your short comings. Open a feedback thread if you have anything else to say.

None of what I said constituted abuse. — Quixodian

Good. Let's keep it that way. :up:

Not true. I pointed out that he adopts the pose that acknowledges climate change BUT then says that climate science and scientists have gotten it all wrong, and that nothing can be done about it, along with irrelevant and preposterous arguments to the effect that more people die from cold than from heat, that not everywhere on the planet is hot, etc. Plainly intent on muddying the waters. — Quixodian

You're agreeing that he acknowledges climate change. Whatever else he might think, none of it warrants abuse. Ban him if you don't like him. Don't engage in a pile on with nasty language. That's just unnecessary.

Sorry. I should have split the sentences and started a new heading. Even better, make a separate post for a philosophical rant.

Saying anything about any scientific subject at least implies an expressed or unexpressed position by the speaker and further that there exists some sort of scientific support for that position.

Pro or con.
But normally, on popularized scientific topics only the pro positions are normally acceptable for fear that children might believe them. For example, If I now propose a hypothetically possible case against global warming or one for a rapidly approaching ice age, rather than being ignored it will raise eyebrows and I might be accused of ignorance or ill will. — magritte

Gotcha. It's just that a pile-on has started a couple of times on the poor guy, and I just thought that was abusive and wrong. I found that just piping up from time to time kept the yen from devaluating. :razz:

And I understand that there probably are people of ill will roaming about. It's easy enough to sort it out.

That is all irrelevant to your argument. To show that there is or there is no global warming you have to find data that is global not local, — magritte

He has never argued against global warming. One of the moderators continuously responds as if he has made that argument, even though he has repeatedly explained that he does affirm global warming. It's just confusion coming from the moderators for reasons only they might know.

Duke Energy has plans to bring a nuclear reactor online in NC

"It’s part of a newly-filed update to Duke’s 2022 integrated resource plan as the utility aims to comply with North Carolina’s emission mandates. That 2021 law requires utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The law also calls for net-zero emissions by 2050."

Yep. Totally refuted. :rofl:

:up:

Sure.

Wow, that's fascinating.

Sent to you — Agree to Disagree

Thanks. If anybody else is interested in an interesting discussion, let me know. I can add you on.

For me World politics looks more and more like in the 19th Century. — ssu

That's disturbing considering what happened next. Why does world politics look like the 19th Century?

You can defend yourself when someone wants to hurt you. But it should be quite clear that the person is really going to attack and hurt you. We know very well just how easy the wording "an existential threat" is used in politics even today and "pre-emption" is cherished. — ssu

Yes. I'm not sure we've learned anything after all our species has been through.

When the ends justify the means. Do you think there's a time when they do?

From the largest trade routes to the smallest transactions, from the global to the local level, pretty much any move we make is regulated by a litany of state policy. Vast legal systems, treaties, trade agreements, jurisdictions, global financial institutions—these are the fetters of state and statist intervention, and their combined reach is global in scale. — NOS4A2

Exactly. Socialism isn't at odds with capitalism. And there are no (real) leftists anymore, so the issue is settled for all practical purposes. For now.

What is truth (and what isn't?)

Is truth everything objective? Or can subjective things such as memories be truth as well?

Does truth have to be factual or could it be (partially) fictional as well? — Kevin Tan

Some think of truth as a predicate. It tells us something about a statement. It's troublesome to say exactly what it tells us because the concept is so basic. It seems you have to use the concept in the process of explaining what it is, so some would say we can just rest there.

For thousands of years, Aristotle's take has expressed what to some is intuitive: that to say that P is true is to say that P is the way things are.

Does truth have to be factual or could it be (partially) fictional as well? — Kevin Tan

A number of writers, Stephen King included, say that you can get closer to truth through fiction than you can by saying something straight out.

I wouldn't put Schopenhauer into the same "New Age" box, but I think his philosophy helps the move in that direction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche and Tolstoy, both of whom were pretty trippy.

Could you explain what you think this data shows?

I just wanted to thank both of you for showing that you can engage someone without anyone being called a "buffoon" or anyone being told to "shut the fuck up." That's great!

I didn't say what I thought the data means. I just asked, "What do people think that this data means?". — Agree to Disagree

What do you think it means?

“….. For although education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse….”
(CPR) — Mww

Quine later laid out an argument for this same insight. You can learn rules from other people, but the ability to apply those rules to new situations has to be innate. You can't learn it.

I am more than happy to discuss Christianity if you find it relevant to the OP: can you tie it back to the OP so I understand where we are headed with this? — Bob Ross

I think your point is that moral realism is associated with a conundrum: it assumes that we don't know right from wrong innately, so we need an external set of rules. But how do we know which rules to embrace if we're morally vacuous to begin with?

I was looking at the cultural roots of the conundrum, as opposed to trying to resolve it. I don't think it has a resolution. :razz:

Yes, it is almost totally meaningless. And it is totally negligible. Why should I limit my consumption for something that is totally negligible.

It also does not seem like "justice" that I make an effort when most other people don't. — Agree to Disagree

Yes. It's true.

To make it clear (with no sarcasm), I believe that people need to take personal responsibility for their own carbon footprint.

If Mikie and other people like him won't take personal responsibility for their own carbon footprint, then why should I.

Oil companies just supply us with what we demand. We are "oil addicts" who are blaming the suppliers for giving us what we want. I blame supermarkets for making people fat. — Agree to Disagree

I agree with you. I assume your point is that if the average person doesn't limit consumption, that makes your efforts to do so meaningless?

I am not sure what you mean by that Frank.

Please explain it to a foolish old man. — Agree to Disagree

You're off the hook for climate change. :up:

It is Big Oil's fault, not mine.
— Agree to Disagree

Correct. — Mikie

Well that was easy @Agree to Disagree

What's your next trick?

So I'll leave it there. — Banno

:up:

:grin: I don't much care what he thought.

The simple point is that the world is often other than what one might have willed. — Banno

Ok. I don't think that insight, awesome as it is, has anything to do with the OP.

Yes, it's no first person. — Janus

If you check out Schopenhauer's description, he's clearly referring to the first person experience.

the immediate first-person sense of being. — Quixodian

No, it's first person.

I agree that Christianity does advocate that we have the moral code written on our hearts, — Bob Ross

Not a moral code. Jesus claimed the moral code is summed up by the imperative to love.

Also, I don’t think Christianity argues that we are innocent, as most Christians believe in innate sin. — Bob Ross

Christians think they've been set free from innate sin. I'm sure neither of us wants to dissect Christianity, I was thinking more historically and culturally about whether evil is supposed to be innate in people. Western culture is diverse and complicated. There are a number of perspectives about evil that dance around one another, fusing here, at odds there. Christianity is a touchstone for the belief that you are or can be free of innate evil. The Christian figurehead also famously claimed that you aren't bound to specific rules of behavior. You can figure it out with love.

Trouble is, reality does not care what you will, — Banno

Did you think Schopenhauer thought otherwise?

the immediate first-person sense of being. — Quixodian

Yep.

What he really struggled with, is with the idea of how from one thing (will), many could arise. He used to be confident about this but appears later in life to become rather troubled by this issue. — Manuel

What I took away from it was an image of a diamond with many faces. Each face thinks it's unique, but logic leads to a collapse of the whole thing into a monolith. That's a side effect of determinism.

Unity and disunity are two sides of the same coin, though. It's mystical.

Without reference to the truthity of either, moral realism tends to be posited as better than anti-realism if it were true; for, in a moral realist world, there would be facts of the matter about morality that society could strive towards independently of tastes (i.e., non-facts). However, I have begun to be suspicious of the benefits of moral realism—to the point of outright claiming it is useless to the normative discussion even if it is true. Let me briefly explain why. — Bob Ross

If I could put your point in my own words:

A moral realist says that people are dependent on external rules for guidance. There is benefit to seeing things this way because people are vile, and hard rules draw them toward something better. We should encourage people to ignore their instincts and follow the rules.

The thing is: somebody is picking those rules. That somebody is human. How did they pick the right rules if they were born vile and have no innate sense of rightness?

Yes, so it appears we do claim for humanity the ability to choose the right path, it's just that some people have this special talent and everybody else just needs to follow them.

The most fundamental Christian view, like from the gospels, is that Jesus says you do have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. You have the whole of the law in your heart, since the fundamental rule is to love others as you love yourself. As Augustine said, "Love, and do as you will." In heavily mythical language, Christianity says you were not born vile. You were born innocent.

It's important to keep in mind that for Schopenhauer, the will as thing in itself is the closest approximation to the thing in itself "unaltered" as it were, it's the closest approximation we have of it, but it's not the actual thing in itself - though he should be much more explicit than he was on this point, he does state this quite clearly in Volume 2, though the specific essay's title is currently eluding me.

The so called "referent" would be the simple act of will - energy in today's term - which can be felt all the time, made more explicit when, say, we move our arms or legs and focus on the act of moving it. Or if we attend to it by being observant of our breathing, and so on.

But, again, this is not exactly the thing in itself, just its closest approximation. — Manuel

:up: I think that's what's often missed about Schopenhauer's idea of will. You may think of it as your own, but it's something you share with Everything. I read that later in life he decided that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Is that your understanding?

I don't think it was confirmed until they had super computers to run the models on.